Soldiers. He knew those heavy steps immediately. He expected the Brutes when he looked up. They sounded like any other soldiers. But no. Three mandragora and an erinyes. The last – or rather, first – was an orange-skinned, indigo-haired woman-looking devil in a full set of dead black armor. Her large red-feathered wings were tucked in yet still added to the height of her presence. The mandragora were large man-looking devils with mottled skin, purples and browns and reds, and long beards made up of writhing worm-like strands. The mandragora were cloven-hoofed. He didn’t see them carrying their usual polearms. Instead, each one had a jagged-edged sword hanging at his hip.
“Search,” said the erinyes. The mandragora nodded and moved to the nearest table on the floor. Three people sat there, holding their tankards of slug, trying to resume their conversation after the heavy-footed intrusion from the devils. One of the mandragora whipped the hood off of one, revealing a genie’s blue mostly-shaven head. The genie and their compatriots shifted, looking for weapons, but the mandragora started to show steel first. The conversers hesitated.
“What’s this about?” said the being behind the bar. An old rough-skinned gargoyle with his twisted, fearsome visage somehow looking weary and concerned. In his typical form, the greenish-gray gargoyle had wings as impressive as the erinyes’s, but he remained wingless in the tavern.
“I’m on commission from the typhonian Mezonqaado,” the erinyes announced, “Polemarch of the Army of Grand Ruin. We seek a fugitive.”
“You don’t gotta quote commissions at me,” said the gargoyle. “Get about your business then.”
The mandragora hadn’t waited for permission. While at the table, one of the mandragora had produced a wand to examine the customers. Once satisfied, the mandragora squad separated so they could investigate other areas more quickly, each of them with a wand of their own. One looked at the orc for a long time. You couldn’t feel magic happening to you unless you were attuned to it, no matter how much experience you had. But he knew that some kind of magic was being worked on him.
“Of course I do,” the erinyes replied to the gargoyle. “You wouldn’t have let my devils search without the fear of my commission.”
“Do they have their heads on right?” the gargoyle asked.
“They might,” the erinyes said. Cool. Always cool. She looked directly at the gargoyle. “They usually don’t take if they’re given.”
“Am I dealing with you one-on-one?”
She smirked. “I speak for my devils.”
“I can’t part with any coin right now. I can give you a fist of nepenthe.”
She lifted an eyebrow. She pushed her lips together as if she was tasting something sweet but wondering if there might be something sweeter still.
“Two fists,” she said. It wasn’t an offer.
“Two,” the gargoyle sighed. “Can you keep them out here for now?”
The erinyes looked at her mandragora who were investigating the gambling tables. The main game was locks, a card game. The players tried not to seem to suspicious while also hiding their cards.
“You’d better hurry,” she said.
The gargoyle walked away a few feet and shouted for a hireling. A pudgy looking creature came up and was ordered into the back to get two fists of “blue.” One of the mandragora looked up and then to the erinyes who waved him off. After a few minutes, the hireling came back with two roughly fist-sized bags clutched against its body. It pushed them up onto the bar and the gargoyle scooped them up.
The erinyes nodded at the mandragora and now they filed back through the door the hireling had gone through. There were shouts as soon as they entered the nepenthe den but those soon died down, right after harsh words in broken Planar language. There wasn’t any breaking of things, though; they weren’t looking for the stash. The erinyes’s pride would probably be immeasurable.
Soon the mandragora were back out and had formed up in front of the erinyes. One of them shook his head. The erinyes nodded and picked up the fists of nepenthe, then handed them both to one of the mandragora.
“We may come back,” the erinyes said to the gargoyle. “I’ll remember that you were cooperative.”
The erinyes gestured to the mandragora and they trooped out, the nepenthe carrier last of them, and the erinyes following. A dozen sets of eyes were fixed on them as they walked out into the street.
“Happy hunting,” the gargoyle grumbled at their back.
The gargoyle slapped his hand hard on the table. Locks keepers yelled out for new bets, a few disturbed dreamers stumbled out from the nepenthe den to get a drink, and the genie pulled his hood back up over his head. The gargoyle shook his head and started to clean a tankard.
The orc pushed up from his seat where he’d had his head down. When he’d reached his full height, he cracked his neck from left to right. The old bastard was huge for a mortal, standing nearly eight feet tall and with a bear’s proportions. His skin was dark and green, like ancient moss. His jaw was round, his nose like an avalanche, his brow was heavy. When his mouth was closed, the points of his fangs stuck up in front of his upper lip. Ratty steel-gray hair hung from the back of his head in strips like an animal had torn it out. He wore a set of heavy trousers and a red top with flowing sleeves which did not hide the fact that he was wearing a brigandine underneath, which was just the sensible thing to do in the wicked town of Malcontent.
He sauntered over to the bar and put his heavy hands atop it.
“Alright, S’las?” the orc said to the gargoyle.
“Alright, Gort,” replied S’las the gargoyle. “Cost of doing business, y’know?”
“Oh, I know,” Gort said. “Hey, would you hand me my blade?”
S’las looked surprised. “You’re not going after them, are you?”
“Not exactly,” Gort said. “Isn’t it strange to you that we’ve seen two erinyes in as many hours?”
“Not really,” S’las said.
“Come off it.”
“It happens! I’ve been around a long time, longer than you’ll know.”
“But how often?”
“It happens,” S’las said. He had laid the blade – two-and-a-half feet, secured inside its scabbard – on the bar.
“I just think something’s going on,” Gort said, “and I’d like to know what it is.”
The orc took the sword and belted it around his waist.
“Why do you care about devil business?” S’las asked. “You keep out of the Brutes’ way, don’t you? Who cares if the law’s not on their side?”
“I don’t know,” Gort said. “Let’s just say that I don’t like it when my favorite drinking hole is tramped in on.”
“Godzammit, this is not a hole,” S’las barked. “For the billionth time, I do not like it when my customers hear that shit!”
“You can put me on payroll,” Gort said, halfway out the door. “Until then, I’ll drink in a cesspit if I want.”
Gort did think about what he’d said as he walked the streets, but he couldn’t go back and save it. He tried to turn his mind to where a lone erinyes might go in this town.
Malcontent was divided by the cleverly-named Gates Road which led from the Outer Gate, connected to the Outlands, to the Hades Gate, which bled out into the torment realm of Hades. If one was standing at Hades Gate and looking down Gates Road, the left-hand side of the town was called Bankside – because the Bank was on that side – and the right-hand side was called Wallside. Using the Gates as two more sides, you could divide the city into quarters.
In the very center of the town, Gates Road expanded out to become the Circus, a riot of voices and prices and possible violence. One could get lost there but one could lose themselves there, too. Devils on the lookout would be there as likely as they’d be anywhere else. Aside from the Circus, there were six neighborhoods in the town. From Hades Gate to Outer Gate, on Bankside there was the Castle Ward (overlooked by the Baroness’s Castle Gristle), the Bank Precinct, and the Devil Hood; on Wallside, there was the Demon Hood, the Gargoyle Hood, and the Mercenary Hood, where he was now.
The lone erinyes couldn’t be staying in the Mercenary Hood, not if she meant to keep out of the hands of her pursuers. She might find it easy to blend in among her kind in the Devil Hood, but all the devils could be raised to alarm pretty easily. Her pursuers wouldn’t likely chase her into the Demon Hood, but then she might not make it back out alive. The Gargoyle Hood had possibilities. They liked to play the middle-men in the war between devils and demons, and she might have information worth selling. He’d try there first.
In the weatherless Outlands, the houses of the Mercenary Hood could afford to have flat tops with no adornment, out of which peered windows with rounded peaks and flat bottoms. The air carried the smell of roasted meat and spices, and piss that had been pissed against walls and in alleys. When he entered the Gargoyle Hood, the smell changed into unadorned rot. The houses were neater here than in the Mercenary Hood and many of them had roofs that rose up to sharp points, making the skyline look dangerous. The smell, Gort knew, came from the weeks-old meat that most gargoyles ate and kept stored in barrels inside and out. They didn’t prefer it rancid, or so S’las had once said, they just didn’t care. They didn’t taste things the same way that other creatures did. They didn’t smell the same way either, apparently. Gort thought he’d said that back then. He’d remember it, anyway.
At any one time, each hood was more or less run by a single person, sometimes called the honcho – like a neighborhood mayor. In the Mercenarys, it was Ely a’Neriwarin, an elf wizard who ran her Star Cross Brigade and lived in a great big manor. In the Gargoyles, it was a gargoyle princeling called Larbinteks, or Larbin the Large. Like Ely Star-Cross, Larbin ran mercenaries, but he wasn’t just a brigade leader. He was deeply plugged into gargoyle politics, and therefore the politics of the eternal war – the same one that people here were gearing up to fight in. They said that Prince Larbinteks controlled the fate of entire campaigns. Some even called him the Shadow Hand.
If someone was new to the town and didn’t know anyone but wanted to sell some information, Larbin might be just the person they’d seek out. Helpfully, Larbin had long lived in Wingfang Manor, whose blue-black spires could be seen from any point in Wallside.
Ignoring the eyes of gargoyles was an unavoidable part of moving through their hood. Whereas most mortals valued things like natural light and aesthetics, gargoyles did not. Therefore gargoyle houses did not have usually have windows. Instead, nearly every room with an outside wall had a peephole drilled into it. Many were small and inconspicuous but some were larger, not enough to be obnoxious but enough that you could clearly see an eye through it. That was on top of the gargoyles who were simply loitering or chattering or working and who always seemed to have time to stare as you walked past.
Gargoyles talked, that was the thing. More than that, gargoyles lied. You could trust a gargoyle, like Gort trusted S’las not to poison him or to cheat him on his tab. The problem was that there were people in gargoyles’ lives who they habitually lied to – usually other gargoyles – and things they’d witnessed could get woven into those lies, and then they’d come back on people who weren’t even involved. The eyes and the smell kept Gort’s legs working quickly.
He walked down a road known as Long Road, which was the second-longest road in the Gargoyles after Wall Road. He needed to turn at Wingfang Drive, which was the fourth-longest road in the neighborhood and which led right up to Wingfang Manor. Gort just made the turn sharply and then slammed into something solid. He staggered backwards two steps, shook his head, and looked down at the heap of brown cloth on the ground in front of him. Gort recognized the cloth.
The heap pulled back part of itself, exposing a person’s head. This person had skin of bright gold, long pearl-white hair, a pair of broad horns that curled back and down around her ears, and the facial features of an elf or maybe a gnome, something of that kind. Gort recognized the head.
“I was looking for you,” Gort said.
The lone erinyes looked up. She didn’t have the silvery wings he’d seen before, but those had likely been morphed away if she knew she was being hunted. As soon as she’d focused, she scurried back frantically and reached in the heap that was her cloak, face lit up with fear.
“Not like that,” Gort said hurriedly, holding up his empty palms to show her he meant no harm. “Some people came looking for a fugitive. I thought you might be in trouble.”
“Why?” she hissed. “You want to turn me in for a reward?”
“I don’t think so,” Gort said. “What I really wanted to know is… here, I’ll tell you, but come on, we should get out of the open.”
Gort reached out to help her up. Instead, she scurried back further. She drew a knife out and pointed it at him.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said. She then got up with practiced mechanics, not taking her eyes off of him.
“Why are you out here?” Gort asked. “Were you trying to get into Wingfang Manor?”
He gestured at the grotesque claw of many fingers that rose up at the end of the drive. She glanced back at it, almost sulking.
“He wasn’t in,” she said. “That’s what his servants said, anyway. I’ve just been walking around, hoping he’ll show up. They won’t let me stay in there.”
“He could be anywhere,” Gort said. “But he’s in town?”
“How would I know that?” she said.
“I don’t know. Maybe they said.”
“Well, they didn’t.”
“Oh.”
The erinyes looked back at Gort and scrunched up her face. “Why did you say you were looking for me?”
“Oh,” Gort said. “Well, I was just think—”
Harsh barking noises broke through the low hum of typical town life. Gort wasn’t a linguist, but he could recognize Low Devilish anywhere; the varieties of Devilish were so distinct that anyone who lived here would pick them up quickly. The erinyes was probably fluent, and she was on alert more quickly than Gort. She took off running down Long Road, away from where Gort had come, and Gort immediately took off after her. He had just managed to draw his sword when the air in front of them warped, collapsed in on itself, then exploded out into the forms of three mandragora brandishing their jagged blades. The erinyes collapsed to her knees trying to stop herself and she scrambled away from those hellish weapons.
“Down sword,” one of the mandragora growled in Planar, looking straight at Gort. He jerked his head in the erinyes’s direction. “This us.”
Gort understood. He leapt forward, lashing out and up with his sword, then turning the blade and cutting down at a mandragora’s face as he landed. The three of them backed up, almost in sync, their blades still at the ready.
“Go on, run!” Gort yelled. The erinyes immediately turned the other way and started sprinting. Gort didn’t look back at her. He had three gleaming blades and three corrosive beards to keep in sight. He slowly waved his own blade back and forth, creeping backwards, daring them to come on.
One of them did. He stepped forward, along with the others, but he stepped further and slashed diagonally to open up Gort’s brigandine. But Gort wasn’t there, not by an inch, he’d swayed back just out of range. His arm cranked up, his sword flashed high and then it streaked down, cleaving straight between the mandragora’s horns and eyes. The devil’s body slackened immediately, hanging from the sword which was stuck into its skull. Gort wrapped his left hand around his right and, using both arms, wrenched his sword over to the side, swinging and flinging the corpse free, its legs fortunately slamming into its comrades and throwing them off balance. The other fortunate thing was that Gort’s blade came free and sloshed blackish devil blood through the air. Gort’s whole body spun around with the force of it. He came to a stop, facing the two remaining mandragora as they tried to get their bearings back. Rather than wait, Gort turned and dashed off after the erinyes. He could see her cloak small in the distance, but he didn’t dare yell out to her, not until he’d gotten closer.
When Gort crossed back into the Mercenary Hood, he glanced over his shoulder to see if the mandragora were following. They weren’t. He looked ahead. She was still running. Now he could probably shout for her, but he didn’t know a name.
“Hey!” he roared, one hand cupped against the side of his mouth, the other still holding his sword free of its scabbard. “Hey you! Hey, stop, would ya!?”
The erinyes showed him her golden face, then she slowed herself to a stop. Gort came running up to her. Just before they came together, Gort thrust his arm out as if to push her back and frantically stamped to bring himself short. He hadn’t sheathed his sword yet and its point was now just a foot from her thigh. Gort stood up straight and dragged his blade back and forth against his leg to clear it as best he could, then he slid it into his scabbard. It’d all require a good clean afterwards but he couldn’t just wander around with a naked beam.
“What do we do now?” the erinyes asked. “They could be anywhere.”
Gort tried to ignore the townspeople side-eyeing them. They weren’t gargoyles but their stories carried just the same. If this had been a mortal town, they would have stood a chance at climbing the walls. In Malcontent? Gort didn’t think a giant could scale them.
“We’ll have to try the Outer Gate,” Gort said.
“That’s hopeless.”
“Look, there’s just two ways out,” Gort said. “The Outer Gate is closer. Plus, I figured you didn’t want to go to Hades.”
The erinyes frowned and tried to think of some other plan.
“They’ll be there,” she said quietly. “I know it.”
“Maybe they won’t be,” Gort said. “Devils have to eat, don’t they?”
She looked up.
“No.”
Gort frowned. “Sleep?”
“No.”
“They’ve got to take some kind of break.”
“No.”
Gort blasted air out of his nose. He knew he’d seen a devil eat sometime. But maybe he hadn’t. He tried to remember if there was some kinda crack in the wall somewhere. He knew that there wasn’t, but maybe there was.
“They sometimes take breaks,” the erinyes said. “They eat sometimes. They just don’t have to.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something, and quick,” Gort said.
“Alright, let’s go to the Gate,” she said. Gort nodded and took the lead, since he knew where they were going. The erinyes glanced back to check no one was following them and then set off after Gort.
The drinking halls of the Mercenarys were livelier than those in the Gargoyles, and Gort’s nerves welcomed the familiar noise. He didn’t let himself enjoy it, though. He was aware of the erinyes fugitive just a few steps behind him and he was constantly checking his senses for any hint of a pursuer coming near. They didn’t go to where the big houses were, they stayed close to the center, because soon enough they’d be turning onto Gates Road itself.
Malcontent was a town of about 10,000 beings most times, so Gates Road was not the kind of packed thoroughfare that he’d seen other places, but it was never empty. In a nightless, sunless place like this, people could and did move at any time, in and out of the Outer Gate. Traders from Hades or from elsewhere in the Outlands, mercenaries looking for the next job, messengers and errand-runners, and your eccentrics. The Road was wide enough to hold a respectable parade for a minor noble, or maybe one cart going Hades-ward and one going Outer-ward at once. Along the road, the buildings were nearly all places of business: stables and inns and short-term warehouses, general stores, and the like. Gates Road was one of the only places in town that one found beggars, most of them people that got stuck in town without money or friends. They were more frequent near the Gate itself where they crowded on the Mercenarys side; standing too long near the Devils Hood was a good way for a beggar to become a slave.
Just as the erinyes had suspected, there were mandragora milling about near the Outer Gate as well. These weren’t the guards, of course. The guards sat in the towers of the gate itself, standing at portholes and armed with storm-lances. The Baroness made sure everyone was aware of that. These devils – Gort counted five, six – were on their own business.
The fugitive erinyes pushed against Gort’s back, trying to see but hide behind him at the same time. She saw what he saw and she hissed.
“See?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said.
“So what do we do now?”
“I’m not sure.” He screwed up his face like he was trying to sniff out the core of the problem. “When did you say they’re going to take a break?”
“They probably won’t,” she said.
“But when would they?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one might take a break if he gets bored?”
“Huh. But would they—”
“Shht!” the erinyes hissed. Gort saw one of the mandragora holding up a wand and saying something to the others. The wand glowed blue. “We have to go!”
The erinyes pulled at Gort’s arm briefly, then she turned and dashed away. Gort backed up at first, keeping his eyes on the mandragora to make sure they weren’t coming after them, then he spun around and ran after the erinyes. Whereas he had gone straight Outer-ward through the Mercenarys Hood before, the erinyes tore off towards the wall, weaving between houses, making a turn at almost every opportunity. She smashed into someone, a scholar, knocking the robed man aside, and as she was getting her feet she slammed right into a sturdier being. She didn’t wait, tearing herself away and running. That second man might have gone after her but Gort was there and he ran straight into that one shoulder-first, sending them off their feet. Gort made his glare pointed but he didn’t waste any more time, picking up his pace to keep up with the erinyes.
“You’ll hit the wall soon,” Gort cried. “Where are we going?”
The erinyes stopped instantly and whipped around to look at Gort. His boots skidded as he came to a stop.
“Where do we go?” she said.
“This way,” Gort said, and he took off in the direction of the Gargoyles. Jogging.
The erinyes watched him for a moment, then caught up with him easily. Gort was looking up, trying to pick out any signs.
“We have to go faster,” she hissed. “They’re going to catch us.”
“Trust me, trust me,” he said.
He took a right-hand turn, then he took a left-hand turn, then he kept going like he was looking for something. She protested again and again he said “trust me”.
Finally, he saw what he wanted: a sign bearing the image of an overflowing tankard. He turned into the place and opened the door, then he grabbed the erinyes’s hand and darted inside, dragging her along with him.
This was a little tavern meant just for the people within a close walk. Most of the drinking was done in this main room, big enough to fit a few dozen, though right now it only held three plus an apron-wearing server. Everything was dark wood or metal and the bitter sour whiff of slug was the dominant aroma. The boards sounded thin, especially under Gort’s weight.
“What in the name of shit is going on?” yowled a gruff but notably feline voice. Out from another door stepped a rakshasa, like a human with a tiger’s head and fur. This one was not as well dressed as many he’d seen, in his dark mantle, tunic, and trousers, but a wealthy rakshasa would never choose to live in Malcontent. Gort tried not to look at his hands.
“Godzake, do you have a room?” Gort bleated, making himself more out of breath and also pleading.
“This isn’t an inn,” the rakshasa said.
“We just need a place to sit for a bit,” Gort said. “It’s my wife.”
The rakshasa lifted an eyebrow and looked at the erinyes.
“No, not her! My wife is chasing us! She’s caught us together and she’s gone out of her mind.”
“That so?”
Two of the customers were clearly listening now and trying not to show it.
“I just want to wait it out a second until she settles down,” Gort said. “She wasn’t that close behind us so I don’t think she saw us come in. You understand, don’t you?”
The rakshasa barkeep laughed a little. “We rakshasa aren’t known for loyalty, to lovers or otherwise,” he said. “But it should be worth my while. What if your wife comes in and wants to pay me?”
“Alright, alright, I’ve got two fangs for you. And drinks.”
“Two fangs, hm?” said the rakshasa. He used a finger on one of his backwards hands to rub his chin. “How about a skein?”
“A skein?” Gort’s eyes were about to pop out of his head. Eight times what he’d offered!
“Your wife has a skein, doesn’t she?” the rakshasa said. “I bet she does.”
“Are you crazy?” Gort yelled. “Do you think I carry a bleeding skein on me? On the street? Running out of my house like I am?”
“Don’t yell, don’t yell,” the tavernkeep said. “A fang-row, then. And I’ll throw in two drinks on the house.”
Gort flashed his actual fangs but he nevertheless reached into the top of his trousers to pull out the small leather sachet he kept secured there. He dug out eight tiny carbuncle cabochons and put them in the rakshasa’s bizarre palm. The rakshasa tavernkeep walked them to another door and opened it, revealing a spare little room with a few chairs and a round table. Gort gestured so that the erinyes would go in first, then he entered, and then the tavernkeep closed the door behind them.
“I should stab you in the groin for that, you know,” the erinyes said, her voice low. She spun around. “Implying that I’m your floozy or something.”
“Well, what did you want me to say?” Gort replied. He tried his best to keep his voice low, too. “Did you want me to tell the truth?”
“Well—”
“I couldn’t say that I was your fling, now could I?” Gort said. “He’d never buy that: devils don’t shack up like that, right? Who’d be chasing me with a rolling pin?”
The erinyes sat down. After a bit, she exhaled.
“I wasn’t going to stab you,” she said. “I was just saying.”
“Right.”
“And devils do get married sometimes. It’s not called that but it’s the same thing, more or less. But it’s more like an al—”
She stopped short when there was a knock at the door and she reached into her cloak. Gort slowly pulled the door open. As soon as that slight smell hit him, he knew what to expect.
“Two mugs a slug,” the rakshasa said, trying to affect the folksy familiarity common in the Mercenarys. From his mouth it was more like a joke; Gort never knew a rakshasa who liked to talk like that. Gort took the two tankards and backed up. The rakshasa looked at him for a moment, still wearing a foolish grin. He then realized that Gort’s hands were now full and he closed the door.
Gort turned around again and carefully handed one of the tankards over to the erinyes. Very likely, she was used to much stronger stuff. Slug was the drink of mortals who took part in the eternal war of evil. Hard to get wheat or hops or grapes out here, after all. Slug was a thick drink made from the fermented milk of the theow, a strange beast that roamed the realms of torment. Even as big a man as he was, and even with as much experience as he had, Gort still had to go slow with this stuff. The erinyes looked at the drink in her hands but didn’t sample. Gort slurped. He was thirsty.
“Now that we’ve got a second,” Gort said, “You want to tell me what’s going on with you?”
“It’s pretty simple, isn’t it?” she said. She set her tankard down on the table.
“Well, usually,” Gort said, sitting down, “devil soldiers don’t come into the town like this. Fugitives come through now and then, and soldiers do, too, but usually they’re not drawing steel inside the walls.” There was an understanding between the Baroness and the great devils, one that relied on things like this not happening.
“Is that right,” she said.
“I figure that if they’re coming after you like this, not waiting until you step outside y’know, that means something big has happened. So what was it? Didja steal some secret plans or something?”
She smirked but didn’t raise her eyes. “You’ve met devils before,” she said, “but you don’t really know a lot about us, do you?”
“I never got stuck right in,” Gort said. “I worked with the devils often enough. You gotta make sure you pay another devil to look over the contract, or that’s what my captain used to say, but as long as you’ve got your dots and crosses, they pay on time. And I did never meet a devil who liked to drink slug.”
The erinyes laughed. “And that’s it, is it?”
“That’s about it.”
“No, you never really learned about us. But that’s alright. Not even we are in the realms of torment because we really want to be.”
The few planar travelers from the torment lands were the exceptions, of course; chant was that if too many of them came across, the universe would shift to throw them back. How it would work, Gort didn’t know. And that was alright, too.
He noticed that she was twisting a ring on her finger. In this light, he couldn’t tell if it was hellbronze or a tarnished gold, and the single faceted stone looked black with flashes of green.
“Does that have something to do with it?” Gort asked. “Is it some kind of weapon? Or a soul-cage?”
She looked at him again. He did like her face when she was amused like this.
“No,” she said.
“You have to tell me something,” Gort said. “Alright, what’s your name? I’m called Gort.”
“My name?” she said. “My name is Leh’mara.”
“Leh’mara, Leh’mara,” Gort said, trying it out. “I’ll try to remember but I might ask you again.”
“It’s okay,” said Leh’mara.
Gort slurped his slug again.
“When should we go?”
“Uh, maybe 2 marks’ time?” Gort said. He thought that was thirty minutes; he still had to convert. “They’ve gotta have time to lose us.”
“I guess that makes—”
They both heard the tavern’s front door bang open. That stomp.
Soldiers.
Gort held up his hand and tried to listen.
The tavernkeeper was out there, talking. Another voice, feminine. He thought he recognized it. His eyes were wide and so were Leh’mara’s. Trying to keep quiet, Gort backed up to the door. As it tried to open, he shoved his weight against it to keep it closed. A heavy fist banged against the door from the other side. Gort wanted to give Leh’mara a signal but he didn’t know what to tell her. Instead, he slowly turned his body, still pinning the door shut. Then he suddenly let the door swing wide and, at the same time, flung his tankard with all his force – straight into the face of a mandragora.
The devil soldier’s head snapped back and his knees gave way, a strangled moan working free of his lips, his hands searching to find some way to break his fall. Gort saw the erinyes officer, the tavernkeep, and one other mandragora. He slammed the door shut again and dragged his sword back out of its scabbard. They were moving outside.
Gort took two quick breaths, then once again flung the door open. In that same motion, he lunged forward and thrust up and out through the doorway. His sword skidded off of another mandragora’s hell-made armor. The surprise and the strike sent this one reeling backwards as well. Gort kicked him at the base of his ribs and stomped him down into the ground. Noticing yet another mandragora to his left, Gort swung over that way next, launching himself into the air and kicking him square in the chest. The mandragora staggered back and crashed into the wall. Gort landed, spun, and blindly slashed through the air to make sure it was clear. Without eyes in the back of his head, he had to take chances. Luckily this one hadn’t gone wrong.
Right at this second, Leh’mara dashed from the room and out the door, running right between Gort and the erinyes officer. Gort rushed after Leh’mara and the officer started coming right after. Just as he was about to exit, Gort reached out and snagged the door handle, then ripped the door closed behind him. Something heavy slammed into the door nearly hard enough to knock it out of frame. Gort didn’t wait to confirm what had happened. He hurried to catch up to the fugitive.
“What do we do now?” Leh’mara panted as they slowed down, just for the moment.
“We’ve got to make for the Gate,” Gort said. “You’ve got to get out of here!”
“We’ll never make it!” Leh’mara groaned.
“Come on!” Gort said. He pushed Leh’mara in the back to get her moving faster and she did pick up her speed, and Gort did as well. People got out of their way as they ran. He wondered if the erinyes and her squad were close but he didn’t dare to look, he was going too fast. They cut between houses when they could, whatever they could do to reach Gates Road quicker.
Soon they stepped out onto it. Gort stopped for a second to breathe, as if he’d just come out into fresh air. Someone knocked straight into him and threw insults at him as he tried to get his feet.
“They’re still there,” Leh’mara cried. “They’re still shitting there!”
Gort looked. Through the screen of pedestrians and carts, he could see that mandragora were still stationed near the Outer Gate. They didn’t look like they’d noticed Leh’mara yet but, if what had happened before was a sign, it wouldn’t be long. Gort cast his eyes around quickly. A wagon stacked high with barrels sat tied in front of a drinking hole, likely a trade waiting on being carried out. He was barely thinking when he ripped out the stake that the wagon was tied to. He wrapped the lead around one hand, gripped the stake tight, and hauled the wagon with all his strength. It took a few seconds to get going but eventually he got its wheels going and it started to roll after him slowly.
Once the wagon was well in motion, Gort let go of the lead line and ran around to the back of the wagon. Now he put his back up against it and gripped the bottom with both hands so he could use his strong legs to drive the wagon forward. It started to move a little more quickly, started to match the general pace of traffic.
“Stay close,” Gort called out. Leh’mara rushed up to Gort’s side and crouched low. She had her hands on the back of the wagon as well but Gort didn’t notice that it got any easier for him. That was okay. He was making good progress, sweat pouring down his face, legs already aching, but he was doing it. Soon enough, Gort was having a hard time keeping up with the wagon, running backwards the way he was. He turned around and grabbed the wagon again, continuing to push but running after it just as much as he was speeding it up.
“They see us!” Leh’mara hissed.
Gort couldn’t look up. He couldn’t do anything but push.
“Then I hope they see the wagon, too!” Gort grunted.
They were getting close to the gate. Someone from above was shouting “Stop!” More than one person, now. That’d be the Brutes on gate duty.
“It’s my cargo!” Gort yelled back at the sky. “This is valuable stuff! It’s slug, I think!”
He just didn’t want them to shoot, that was all. They just had a little bit more to go.
The yelling got louder, sharper, and much nearer. Gort saw people who had just jumped out of the way of the wagon now, who were snarling and cursing at Gort and Leh’mara both. The shadow of the gates washed over them.
“Go, go!” Gort yelled.
“Stop!” yelled one of the Brutes.
A mighty crack broke through the air – the bolt from a storm-lance fired out of a tower – and it ripped through one of the wheels of the wagon. Somebody screamed. The wagon slumped suddenly, twisting his shoulder and wrenching itself out of Gort’s hands. He yelled out and dropped to a knee. The mandragora were coming around now, he knew it. The wagon’s tilt was so bad that some of the barrels on the top tumbled over the side, and just as a polearm came into view, a barrel smashed into that mandragora’s skull, killing him instantly and breaking open on contact.
It was slug, in fact. The stinking milk beer sloshed through the street in a widening flood. Gort, his leg getting wet already, now brought his sword out of hiding once again. He got up and turned out around a corner of the toppled wagon. Before him was a mandragora, holding one of those wicked polearms but not bringing it to bear. Gort wasted no time, stepped in, turned his wrist, and jabbed his blood-flecked sword straight through the mandragora’s beard and throat. Ends of those rancid worm-strands flopped down the mandragora’s chest as blood sprayed from the wound. Using the sword lodged in this dying being as a base point, Gort stepped up and onto the leaning wagon, then with a full-arm swing he ripped his sword back out of the mandragora’s neck and sluiced blood at two of his fellow soldiers. These mandragora recoiled, then started forward.
Another lightning crack came, this time leaving a smoldering scar in the pavement just in front of the two mandragora. They stopped short and looked up at the towers. Thinking quickly, Gort turned away from them and ran along the remaining barrels, then leapt over the front of the wagon just as another storm-bolt chased him. He landed heavily and rolled, slamming his shoulder and knocking his head a bit, but he was still conscious and unhurt enough that he could get to his feet. And somehow, miraculously, his sword had only shredded his shirt in that fall.
He found himself outside the walls of Malcontent. Outside in the long desert of the Outlands, where nothing grew of its own accord. Most people were traveling along the City Road, the road that people in the City at the Center would call the Malcontent Road. Going about their business, thinking about their own things. Walking or pulling carts, a few of them with load-bearing animals.
After a moment, Gort saw Leh’mara running as well. She jumped once in the air, as if for joy. She jumped again. Gort smiled. She was forgetting her wings. Probably she was going to remember and then fly away. Inside the walls, the Brutes would have shot her down. Now, that’d be her best chance by far. He remembered her silvery wings.
He didn’t see them again. Instead, Leh’mara’s form shifted even as she kept running, kept getting smaller in his sight. The cloak and clothing she wore seemed to dissipate entirely. The mortal-esque form she had now stretched out, and there were things now pushing out of her skin. His face fell as he recognized what this was.
A wendigo. A devil of a different kind.
And then it was gone. It snapped out of existence by teleport. He would have no idea where the wendigo, the fugitive he’d been calling Leh’mara, would end up.
Someone was laughing loudly behind him. Gort knew who it was as the sound got closer. He turned around slowly, shoulders slack, and saw the orange-skinned erinyes officer with her blood-red wings carrying her through the air, a look of sublime pleasure on her face. She had her own sword drawn already and held it out at arm’s length, ensuring some level of safety for herself. She landed gracefully a few feet away from him.
“You poor, poor mortal,” she said. “Look at you. You were having fantasies of running away with your new erinyes lover, weren’t you? Maybe you even thought you’d redeem her somehow?”
Gort just looked at her. He didn’t have anything else to say. She might have even been right. He was too drained to argue about it.
“That was never an erinyes,” the officer continued. “If it was, this operation would have been… different. On this petty traitor, well. You wouldn’t understand. Logistics.”
“Sure,” Gort said.
“I should kill you, you know.”
“Please.”
The erinyes laughed again.
“No,” she said.
Gort almost smiled.
“On one condition,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“What is your name, mortal?”
“Gortor Tubeg.”
“The names of your parents?”
“You wouldn’t know them.”
“And what about your true name, do you know that?”
Gort stared at her, then said “Gortor Tubeg.”
She shook her head. “Mortals never do. Shall I tell you if I find it out?” Gort opened his mouth, but she said: “No, I don’t think so. I’ll keep that to myself. Gortor Tubeg, I will spare you for now, but I will be reporting your name. If we might have a reason to want you, we will come get you.”
“Been in the same place for five years,” Gort said. “I’m sure I’ll be around.”
“Alright, what’s going on here?”
This was another new voice, somewhat brassy as it came through a crier’s horn. Gort looked up first and saw an air-chariot – a mount-less platform that could fly through the air and carry passengers. On it were three Brutes, two of them with storm-lances aimed down at Gort and the erinyes, the third with the horn up to their mouth.
“What?” Gort yelled.
“What was all this commotion about?” the Brute called back. “We’ve just broken open several barrels of slug and at least two people are dead at the Gates! What do you mean, what?”
“It’s army business,” the erinyes officer said, her voice somehow calm but booming. “We are hunting a fugitive.”
“Is that so?” said the Brute from the air-char. “You want we should take this one in, then? Do you need him?”
The erinyes looked at Gort. “No, it’s not necessary,” she said. “I’ve already spoken to this Gortor Tubeg. I’m sure you can find him if you need him.”
“Tubeg?” the Brute said. “We’ll remember it. You have a good day, officer.”
The air-chariot lifted up into the air, spun around, and headed back up to one of the towers. The erinyes smiled and sheathed her sword, then raised back up by her wings.
“We don’t get to laugh often, Gortor Tubeg,” she said. “I think I’ll make a very good impression among my sisters with this amusing story. A mortal rescuing a wendigo, thinking it’s an erinyes. That is absolutely filthy.”
She laughed and flew out along the City Road. Gortor watched her go in dejection. This whole war was a kind of cosmic joke. He just hated it when he was the punchline.